I'd like for you to turn with
me to Matthew chapter 16. I'm going to give you a double
dose of Matthew's Gospel this morning. I passed over this passage in
our Sunday school lessons, but I don't want to go too far without
going back and dealing with these two verses. Matthew 16, verses
24 and 25. Then said Jesus unto His disciples,
Would you be His disciple? Then He's talking to you. He's
talking to you. If any man will come after Me,
let him deny himself, and take up His cross and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life
shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for My sake
shall find it." For those of you in here this
morning, that would like to go home and study this passage in
depth and look at it a little closer and think about the comments
that I've made and get a good understanding of what this passage
teaches. You can look back in Matthew
Chapter 10, read through that chapter. You can go over and
read Mark Chapter 8 and then Luke Chapters 9 and 14, and then
you'll have a good understanding of what this passage is saying. The teaching of this passage
that I just read to you, and of these other references that
I just gave you, is that the Lord Jesus Christ demands from
all believers. This is something He demands.
He demands from all believers a deliberate. What do I mean
by that? I mean something that you've
thought about. something that you've weighed, something that
you've sat down and counted the cost of. He demands a deliberate
self-denial and continual consecration to himself. The man or woman who is unwilling
to bow to him put on his uniform, and to take his pledge before
him has no place as his disciple. That's what he said. I went in the Navy years ago. I think you were in the armed
services. First thing they had you do,
hold up that hand. Pledge your allegiance to this
country. That's the first thing He'll have you do. The cross we take up and bear
is the cross of His despised person, His doctrine, His will,
and His glory. And the man who is unwilling
to bear his cross in this world cannot be His disciple. That's
what the Scripture says. That's what He said. You cannot
be my disciple. If you won't carry My cross,
you can't follow Me. And if I won't bear His cross,
somebody said, I cannot wear His crown. If I won't bear His
cross here, I cannot wear His crown there. True saving faith involves a
total surrender to Christ. Total surrender. I give up. I give up. I quit. He wrestled with Jacob, didn't
he? Huh? I like what old Scott said years
ago. He said he was preaching on that passage of wrestling
with Jacob. And he said, now when I wrestle,
it ain't for fun. He said, I mean to get you down. I mean to get you down. And when
the Lord wrestles with us, it ain't for fun. He's going to
put you down. And the end result is going to
be that you surrender to Him. You surrender to Him. It involves
a total surrender to Christ the Lord. We'll bow ourselves as
willing bond slaves under the reign of Christ, or we'll live
out our days in nothing but a hollow shell of what true saving faith
ought to be. We just leave it out. We leave
it out in pretense. Now, this might not square up
your profession of faith, and I'm quite certain it doesn't
jive up with what this world teaches and with their traditional
ideas. But know this, this is the teaching
of our Lord and the plain instruction of all His apostles. You can't
get away from this truth, this bowing to Christ. You cannot
have true saving faith apart from a surrender to Christ. And
surrender to Christ, it's the giving of oneself to Him. It's just the giving of yourself
to Him. Brother Mahan said one time,
you might not be required to actually give up anything. But
the surrender must be the same as if it required all that you
had. He often doesn't require anything,
not much. But he may require all. I've got four things I want you
to look at this morning. I want us to look at this thing
about coming to Christ and what that means, what that is. What
is that? He that would come to me. He that cometh to me. He that
cometh to me. What's that mean? What's he talking
about? He talking about coming down an aisle? What's he talking
about? Talking about coming to church?
He that cometh to me. So we're going to talk about
that a little bit. And then secondly, I want to talk to you quite a
bit about this thing of self-denial. And thirdly, about bearing our
cross, and then last of all, following Him. Now these four
things put together sum up the life of the believer. His whole
life is involved in these four things. Coming to Christ, denying
himself, carrying his cross, and following the Lord. That's
the life of the believer. First of all, he speaks about
this coming to Christ. What does it mean to come to
Christ? Well, coming to Christ is an act of the mind and the
heart and the will. The mind and the heart and the
will. The mind, first of all, in 1 Corinthians 2, the apostle
tells us something about this first work of God in us who are
called of God. It's the hearing and revelation
of the gospel of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 2, 7, he tells
them that he came preaching the wisdom of God in a mystery. The
gospel is a mystery to this world. They don't understand it. I sat
in the pews and listened to them preach, and they talk about your
sins being put away. I've heard them say it. Your
sins are put away. in the deepest part of the sea.
They'd say all them things. And then next week, they'd be
talking about my sins. What sins? I thought He put my
sins away. If He put them away, why are
they still here? I didn't understand that. Did you? Christ died for our
sins. Okay, then I don't have to die.
Well, you may have to. Well, now wait a minute. Did
He die for my sins? Or am I going to die for my sin?
Those things were all mysteries to me. Mysteries to me. I didn't
understand those things. I didn't understand anything
at all about Israel. They had Israel doing this and
Israel doing that. And all through the Old Testament,
these were the children of God. These were the people of God.
And all of a sudden, in the New Testament, now they're enemies
of God. Well, how did His children get
to be His enemies? Did you understand any of those
things? It's a mystery. It's a mystery. The appearance, the life, the
death, the resurrection and heavenly reign of Jesus Christ is a great
mystery and it's closed to this world. It's closed. They don't
understand it. The best they can make out of
it is an offer. It's an offer. The best they
can make out of the gospel is an invitation. I'm telling you
something this morning, the Gospel is not an invitation. It's a
command. He commandeth all men everywhere
to repent. He didn't ask you for a place. We're talking about the sovereign
Lord of glory. And this world has Him down on
His knees begging men to do something for Jesus. There's a revelation of Christ.
There's a revelation of these great And he said, Paul said, the greatest
evidence of this is that the princes of the world didn't know
this. When Christ came into the world,
they saw Him face to face. They heard Him preach. We like
to blame it on the preacher. Well, they couldn't blame it
on the preacher, because the preacher was Christ. Now who
are you going to blame it on? The princes of this world didn't
know it, or they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
These things are a mystery. Even the most basic and fundamental
doctrines of Christ are not preached in any of the most prominent
of our denominations in this day. None of them, not the least
fundamental doctrine. Who He is, and why He came, and
what He did, and where He is. That's not the subject of modern
day evangelists. They don't preach Christ crucified.
They're up there to win souls and fill up the house and get
you to join their association. Live by whatever moral standard
that they've determined to be right. Later on in this chapter, Paul
said, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God for their foolishness unto him. Neither can they know
them because they're spiritually discerned. What are these things of the
Spirit of God? Well, it's the Word of God. We
say everybody believes this is the Word of God. I can tell you
haven't witnessed anybody. Pull out this book and say, let's
turn over here and let me show you what sin is. Now wait a minute. Seems to me, no, we're going
to leave me out of it. We're just going to find this
in the Word of God. You can't shut a natural man up to the
Word of God, he ain't going to have it. He'll have this book
and his ideas. He'll have this book and what
seems right to him. There's a way that seemeth right
unto a man, and the end thereof is death and destruction. He'll never just give you the
Word of God. He'll give you what it says here and his ideas, his
philosophies. The Word of God and the preaching
of the gospel You just believe that that guy
wears the only guy around here who knows anything at all about
God. Huh? How many times you heard that?
I've heard that more than I want to hear it. More than I want
to hear it. The designated means and authority
of Christ. You can't shut a natural man
up to that. He ain't going to bow to a pastor. He's not going
to submit himself under his rule. He's not going to do it. He's
not going to be corrected by it. Try to correct a natural
man. It's like trying to pet a wolf.
You bite your arm off. Only God, God the Holy Spirit,
His work in us brings us down under these things, to receive
these things, to understand these things in our head. The first work of the Spirit
of God in us is to give us an understanding of the crucifixion
of Christ, God come into the flesh, that He is a representative
man, one appearing not for Himself but on the behalf of others,
that He is God's mediator, mediating the sovereign will of God, that
He is here as a substitute and sin-bearer, that He is here to
satisfy the justice and righteousness of God for chosen sinners, that
He has a true Israel, a chosen people, Not of the Jews only,
but also of the Greeks. Spiritual Israel. Spiritual Israel. That He came into this world
to save sinners. How many people know something
about that? Not very many. Paul said, this is a faithful
saying. This is worthy of all acceptation. Jesus came into
the world to save sinners. To save sinners. And self-righteous
men are not who He came to save. Think not that I come to call
the righteous. He's not come to call the righteous.
He's not going to call the righteous. And you can't teach a self-righteous
man anything. Self-righteous men are deceived
and deluded by a false gospel. And they walk in the vanity of
their mind. They walk according to the prince
of the power of the earth. And those who have been born
of God are brought to understand these things. They heard the
truth. God opened these things to them.
They understand them in their mind. Now, I'm going to tell
you something. If you're going to get to anybody,
and by that I mean through the power of the Holy Spirit, you're
going to have to get to them first through the understanding.
They're going to have to understand who God is. The only way they're
going to understand that is for you to tell them. You're going
to have to tell them, and then pray that God will open it up
so they can see it. Bow to it. Bow to it. They can see it. Men understand
what I say, they wouldn't get angry. They understand what I'm
saying when I talk about election. They don't have any problem understanding
that. They have a problem bowing to it, but not understanding
it. And those who are born of God
come to understand these things. They hear them, they believe
them, they understand why these things must be so. Listen to
this, 1 Corinthians 2.14, I quoted to you a few moments ago, "...the
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
for there is foolishness unto him, neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned." Now listen to what
Paul says right after that, "...but he that is spiritual, That man
born of God, that man who's given eyes to see and ears to hear,
that spiritual man, he that's spiritual judgeth. That word
means understandeth. He judgeth the matter and understands
it. He understandeth all things,
yet he himself is understood of no man. No man. And then to
nail this thing down about this natural man and his not understanding,
he quotes a verse here out of Isaiah chapter 40. He said, For
who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him?
What's the answer to that? Christ. Christ alone. He's the only one. He's the only
one. Now watch what he says. We have
the mind of Christ. We have the mind of Christ. Christ
understood what God was. Decreed from all eternity, He
was with God. Ain't that what John said? He
was in the beginning with God. He was God and He was with God. He understood from all eternity. He was one of the three persons
who struck hands when this eternal covenant of grace was made. Only one able to instruct God,
one equal with God, and that is Christ. And we have His mind. That is what is given to the
believer, the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ. Listen to
what he says. The Lord said, I will set my
eyes upon them to do them good, and I will bring them again to
this land, And I'll build them, and I'll not pull them down,
and I'll plant them and not pluck them up, and I'll give them a
heart to know Me. To know Me. That I'm the Lord. I'm the Lord. God the Holy Spirit teaches us
the way. reveals to us the true condition
of our sinful nature and shows us the glory of His grace in
Christ. He has our hearts. And that's the second thing.
This thing is a heart work. It's a heart work. I'll put my
laws into their hearts. What's he talking about over
there in Hebrews chapter 10 when he said that? I'll put my laws
into their hearts. What's he talking about? He's
going to give us the ability and the affection and things
like that to keep the Ten Commandments. Is that what you're talking about?
I'm going to put my laws, the reality of what they mean, and
them being accomplished in Christ. I'm going to write them there
in your heart. I'm going to show you my laws honored in Christ. Show you the perfection of my
justice and righteousness accomplished in Christ. I'm going to write
that on your heart and in your mind. And your sins and iniquities
I'm going to remember no more. No more. The heart that can rejoice in
truth and rest in Christ and love God who first loved him,
that man has a new heart. And then the third thing involved
in this coming to Christ is the will. No man will ever be saved who
is unwilling. Ain't never going to be saved.
Never going to be saved. Well, does that mean man has
a free will then? No, that's not what that means. It is the unwillingness. I want
you to listen to me. It's the unwillingness of man
to come to Christ that manifests his hatred for God. He's not
willing. He's not willing. Here's condemnation. Light come into the world. Men
loved darkness rather than light. They weren't willing to come
to it. He said, you search the Scriptures because In them you
think you have eternal life, and they are they that testify
of Me, but you will not come to Me that you might have life."
He said, I know you that you have not the love of God in you.
When did he say that? Right after he told them they
would not come to him to have life. Psalm 110. The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit
thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
And then from this reigning victorious throne that David set before
us, his Lord seated at the right hand of God, David said, The
Lord shall send the rod of thy strength. Now watch this. Out
of Zion. What's that? That's the church.
Huh? Rule thou in the midst of thine
enemies. How are you going to do that?
Verse 3, thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. What is that power? It's the
gospel. It's the gospel. The presence
of the Holy Spirit in the preaching of the gospel. The power of God
unto salvation. Isn't that what it says? He sends from his victorious
throne in heaven his rod of strength into Zion. And Zion rules among
their enemies. And he said, my people are going
to be willing to bow to that authority in the day of my power. They're going to bow. They're
going to bow. The willingness of his people
is the result of the merits and the power of His person and work. It is the mind and hearts of
men that determine the will. The will is not something over
here all by itself, and neither is the mind. The whole man is
made up, the mind, the heart, and the will. And until the mind and heart
are changed, your will is doomed forever to be a will not. Throughout the scriptures, faith
is portrayed as a man coming to Christ. And it comes to Christ
because he is the wisdom of it, the object of it, and the goal
of it. Faith comes to Christ because
he's the strength of it. He's the object of its affection.
And he's the hope of it. And so he comes to Christ. It
didn't say he came. It said he cometh. He keeps on
coming. He keeps on coming. Believe on
the Son of God is to come to us. Now here's the second thing
that he mentions here, self-denial. And self-denial is an unconditional
surrender to Christ. You cannot have true saving faith
apart from a total surrender to Christ. We covered that in
the Sunday School lesson. Surrender to Christ is a giving
up of one's self to Christ. Self-denial. What is this self-denial? Well, different men say different
things. Somebody said this, self-denial
is the death of self-will. And it's the birth of God's will. Self-denial. Self-denial is recognizing
that there's nothing in ourselves worth saving. Otherwise, you
wouldn't deny yourself. Would you? So long as a man thinks
he's worthy, he won't deny himself. He'll hold out. Even if it's
just that much, he'll hold it out. True faith is led by the
Spirit of God to survey the history of man in his own history in
the light of the Word of God and to see himself with them
as unprofitable in their being. In their being. Romans 3.12, to see destruction
and misery in their ways. Romans 3.16. Self-denial is an
act of faith that receives God's condemnation of man. It sees
him in his ruined state, turns his eyes to Christ. And this
thing of self-denial is vitally connected to counting the cost. If you'll read those references
I gave you over in Luke chapter 14, It's vitally connected with this
thing of counting the cost. He recognizes that in himself
that we have nothing to contribute to the building of this great
house of faith. That's why he tells you to count
the cost. You're going to start something you can't finish because
you don't have any contribution to start with. So before this
great house of faith is built, we're going to have to see if
we've got what it takes to complete the building. We don't, unless
we have Christ. And if we have Christ, we've
got everything that it takes. This thing of self-denial is
intertwined with hating father, mother, sister, brother, wife,
and children. We don't hate them in their relationship
to us. That's not what this is talking
about. But as we hate what we are by nature, even so we hate
the same thing in them. Let me ask you something. Do you
think your parents and your family is exempt from the fall? We do if we make exemptions on. Oh, I tell you, sometimes I say
something about mama, boy, and people get red in the face. You're
talking about my mama. Yeah, your mama fell too, just
like mine. That's why we make allowances
for their ungodliness, and that's why we make allowances for their
lives. Let me tell you something. You
cannot deny yourself and make allowances in anybody for what
you hate in yourself. You don't truly hate what you
see in yourself if you still make an allowance. Our sins are
set before us. Now here's what I want you to
see. Our sins are set before us in a universal declaration. I don't read the Word of God
and it says in here what Darwin Pruitt did this. You ain't going
to find that in here anywhere. And sometimes I think that's
what we're waiting on. We're waiting on God to call
our name and say, you know, now, now, now He's talking to me.
No, He's talking to you all along. But He talks to you about sin
in a universal declaration. You'll never find it as an individual. Unless it's an individual confessing
it. True faith is led by the Spirit
of God to serve all of man's history, as it's recorded in
this book, and his own with it. His own with it. It's an act of faith that receives
God's condemnation of man, sees him in his ruined state, and
turns his eyes to Christ. Our sins are set before us in
a universal declaration. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. Can you take your place in there?
None righteous. None good. None that understandeth. None that seeketh after God.
And nowhere in the scriptures does it describe me as an individual. as a sinner. He simply sent before
us the fall of Adam in the garden and the consequential ruin of
all his sons and daughters. But when the Holy Spirit in power
convinces me of that truth, of that truth, I'll hate that sin
wherever I see it. None of you in here love your
father as much as I love mine. But I despised when he was in
his self-righteous state and trying to talk to me about the
Bible, I despised what he was. And that's what this is talking
about. That's exactly what... I didn't despise him as my father.
He was a wonderful father. But he was a horrible preacher.
Because he didn't know God. He didn't know God. God the Holy Spirit has to convince
you of sin. And when He does, you'll be convinced
of it and everybody. You'll quit, you know, But sometimes
I think we see ourselves as sinners and as sinners forgiven of God,
but we don't count anybody else a sinner. And therefore, we can't
make allowance for them being saved by grace the same way we
are. When He convinces you of sin,
you'll be convinced that sin is in our body. And when you
hear the preacher mess up, you won't get on him too bad. And
when the preacher sees you mess up, he won't get on you too bad.
He knows what you are. He'll lead you to take your place
as children of wrath, even as others. He'll cause you to read
and accept God's testimony that man at his best state is altogether
vanity, that he drinks iniquity like water, and that all his
righteousnesses are as filthy rags. And that man who denies
himself will deny all flesh no matter what their relationship
is with him. And then denying oneself is to
see the truth about the world around us. The man who knows the truth about
this world knows to deny it. Not to chase after its treasures
and not to lust after its pleasures, and not to hide in its refuges,
and not to listen to its philosophies, not to covet its honor, and to
despise its religion. All these things that are in
the world, John said, are not of the Father. They are not of
Him. Self-denial is the willing and
deliberate surrender of ourselves into the hands of Christ to do
with what He will, because We see we can't do anything for
ourselves. And this world can't do anything
for us. So what else are you going to
do? There's only one Savior. There's only one way. There's
only one person who can do anything for you, and that's Christ. And
when God convinces you of that, you'll just give yourself to
Him. You'll deny yourself. And you
just give yourself to Him. He's all the evidence you'll
ever need. He's all the evidence. If sin
wasn't exactly what God said it was, then he wouldn't have
suffered on that cross. And if salvation ain't exactly
what God said it was, he wouldn't be seated at the right hand of
God. He's all the evidence you'll ever need. In Him to teach us
His will, and to use us as He will, and to go where He will,
wherever He leads you, and to hear what He commands you to
hear. Paul said, it's the love of Christ that constraineth us,
because we thus understand that if one died for all, then all
were dead. Isn't that pretty simple? If one died for all, then all
were dead. And that he died for all, that
they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto
him which died for them and rose again. If any man will come after
me, he said, let him deny himself." Now here's the third thing. Take
up his cross. What is this cross bearing that
the Lord said is necessary to the saving of the soul? Well,
to take up the cross of Christ is to knowingly and purposefully
choose to follow a course that's just sure to bring trouble down
on your head the rest of your life. That's what it is. It's to sit and to know, to know
this. This is what's coming, what's
coming. This whole thing of religion,
this pie in the sky and the sweet bye and bye and all this, Jesus
loves you and I just love you. I've had, I've worked with religious
men and they come around and they just make me sick. They're
just, they're too lovey. They're just too lovey. I love
you. Well, I ain't that crazy about
you. Stand over there a little bit. Let's keep a little space
in here. Let's talk about this thing a
little bit. You see what I'm saying? This
thing's a heart work. It's a conventioning of the Holy
Spirit of God. It's writing these things in
the heart and in the mind and giving you an understanding of
it. And then he talks about this taking up this cross. It's to knowingly, purposefully
choose to follow a course that's just sure to bring upon your
person a lifetime of trouble. He said, he that will live godly
in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. There's a very interesting usage
of words here in this text also. He talks about taking up this
cross. There it is. He didn't pick it
up and hand it to you. He tells you to pick it up. If
you're going to follow me, take it up. Take it up. Huh? Take it up. Take up this, my doctrine. Take up my crucifixion. Take
up my despised person. Take up my gospel. Take your
place with my charity. Boy, you're going to have trouble
now. You're going to have trouble now. It's a voluntary act. He must
do it because he willingly and lovingly desires to serve his
Master. And I tell you, the more he knows
about it, the more he knows about that trouble. The more he knows
about that cross. And it's taking up this cross.
It's not something you sit back in your room one day and say,
boy, I'm going to do this. No, that's not how it works.
That's not how it works. Only the grace of God. Now, I'm
telling you what it took me a lifetime to learn. Only the grace of God
is sufficient to cause a man to take that cross up. It's going
to cause division from your dearest friends. It's going to cause
division between you and your wife, between you and your children,
between you and your brothers and your father and your mother.
And there's going to be, in some cases, unreparable differences
and divisions. There's nothing but the grace
of God and the love of God that's going to cause a man to take
up that kind of a cross. Nothing else. And the cross is to them a crucifixion
of this world. I see on that cross, that cross
I take up is a crucifixion of this world. I see in it the judgment
of God against this world. And that cross is also the condemnation
of ourselves in the eyes of the world. You take up that cross? Let me tell you something. There
were thousands of people there that day they crucified the Lord.
And they had a man guilty of sedition and mirth. And they
chose the Barabbas to go free. And they said, here is the just
wrath of God on God's elect. And that is how this world sees
you. Exactly how they see. They see you as you see them. They'll forgive the barabbas
and crucify God's elect every time. Are you willing to take
up that crop? Are you willing to be separated
from mother, father, sister, and brother? Are you ready to
lose your life? You may well do it. You may well
do it. Preacher, I can't do that. Neither
could the rich young roaster. Neither could he. Boy, I kept
all these things from my youth up. Well, you don't have no problem
with this then. Take everything you have, wait
a minute, and set it, and give it to the poor, and take up that
cross, and follow me. I better think about that and
walk away. I can't do that. Preacher, I
can't do that. Then you can't be his disciple. That's what
he's telling these men. Luke chapter 14, verse 26, you
can't be my disciple. And then last of all, he says
for us to follow him. If any man will come after me,
let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." Following
Christ is the spirit of discipleship. That's what being a disciple
is. Disciple ain't out here knocking on doors and fundraising and
out here with banners marching up down the road protesting.
Following Christ is the spirit of discipleship. We follow Him
as God sets Him forth. We follow Him as a bride follows
her husband. We follow Him as a bond slave
follows his loving master. You can go out. No, I don't want
to go out. I love my master. I want to stay
here. Okay. Come up here to the door.
I'm going to boil your ear. We follow Him because we see
in Him all our hearts could desire. We follow Him because God has
appointed Him as our Lord and King. And we desire His rule
in our lives. I'm going to read these next
two verses and I'll use this as my closing statement. Verse 26, whosoever will save
his life will lose it. He's going to lose it. Boy, you
better be careful. I better be careful. Whosoever
will save his life will lose it. And whosoever will
lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if
he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what
shall a man give in exchange for his soul? What's he talking
about? Well, he's asking this question,
what relationship, what opportunity, what pleasure, what honor, what
of all that this world sets before you are you willing to trade
for your soul? That's what he's asking. What
are you willing to trade for your soul? And if you gained all that the
world sets before you, and lose your soul, what have you profited?
Have you profited anything at all? May the Lord be pleased today
to lead us to Christ by His Spirit, and seeing ourselves and seeing
Him, to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow.